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Television Businesses Media Apple

Slingbox Comes to the Mac 76

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the slung-like-a-cable-box dept.
Egadfly writes "The Slingbox has arrived for the Mac world. Some long delays during development now seem over. Sling Media has finally released version 1.0 of their software for Mac OSX. This means that, after buying and installing the Slingbox, Mac users can 'sling' their home cable and satellite signals to themselves at the airport, or in a café hotspot, or over their office computers. The article on SlingCommunity.com gives the details of the software's development — from last year's much-discussed beta to today's v1.0. Screenshots show how a standard-looking "TV remote," displayed onscreen, allows the Mac users to change channels or browse Tivo recordings over the Internet, many miles from their living rooms."
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Slingbox Comes to the Mac More

Slingbox Comes to the Mac

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  • Mac or not, the Slingbox simply rocks! (Score:5, Funny)

    by LibertineR ( 591918 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:07PM (#19245407)
    No more being a slave to whatever is playing in my hotel room. With a fast connection, I can watch and control my own DirecTV from wherever I happen to be. Either on my laptop, or my Treo, I can watch what I want, when I want. Slingbox ought to hire me, because I help sell a few units everytime I connect up waiting at an airport gate. People cant believe I am watching my own DirecTV on my phone.

    Get one, bitches.

    • Re:Mac or not, the Slingbox simply rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zhe Mappel ( 607548 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:19PM (#19245523)
      No more being a slave to whatever is playing in my hotel room. With a fast connection, I can watch and control my own DirecTV from wherever I happen to be. Either on my laptop, or my Treo, I can watch what I want, when I want. Slingbox ought to hire me, because I help sell a few units everytime I connect up waiting at an airport gate. People cant believe I am watching my own DirecTV on my phone.

      Get one, bitches.

      You're still a TV slave. You're just placeshifting your shackles.

    • Re:Mac or not, the Slingbox simply rocks! (Score:5, Informative)

      by jaredcat ( 223478 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:54PM (#19245909)
      I've got one of these too (CompUSA's going out of business sale), and I love it.

      I travel for business about 2 weeks per month, and I go mad trying to find something to watch on Hotel television.

      The Slingbox lets me see and control everything on my Tivo Series3 and the quality is pretty good even at full screen.

      The SlingPlayer client is amazingly well thought out, even though the UI could use some refinement. For instance, during initial setup, the SlingPlayer client asked me for my home router's password and automatically configured the ports it needed.

      Also, I don't need to know my IP address at all... Once I've connected to my Slingbox 1 time on my own home network, it remembers that Slingbox's ID on SlingMedia's server. The next time I go online anywhere in the world, the SlingPlayer client looks up the real IP address of my Slingbox on SlingMedia's server and then connects automagically.

      My only complaint about the SlingBox (and its really not SlingMedia' fault) is my HDMI troubles with the Tivo Series3. When the Tivo is connected to a TV via HDMI, and that TV is off, it doesn't see the HDMI DRM handshake signal. When that happens, Tivo displays an error message on all video outputs. My SlingBox is connected to my Tivo via Component video. So the first time I went off on a trip, all I could see when I connected to my Slingbox was the menu screen and that stupid HDMI error message. The workaround was to just unplug the HDMI cable when I know I'm going to travel... Or I guess I could leave my TV on 24-7 too.

      Sometimes I use SlingPlayer at home when I just want to watch Tivo in a little square while I'm working insted of putting my laptop in front of the TV. On the local LAN, the quality is at least as good as SDTV.

      Anyway IMHO the SlingBox is a must-have for any business traveler.
    • Is the stream still encrypted? That's what happened to mine via an unsolicited flash upgrade. Box went back, now moving to HAVA. http://www.snappymultimedia.com/index.php [snappymultimedia.com]

  • Full circle (Score:5, Funny)

    by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:10PM (#19245433) Homepage Journal
    Can I then use the iTV to sling it back to my television set?

    Maybe we can get them to sling it back and forth until it opens a wormhole or something.
    • If I can sling it back and forth between the boxes like this, that means I won't have to watch it! Freeing me up to go outside and play or something. This could be a big selling point...

    • jfengel: Maybe we can get them to sling it back and forth until it opens a wormhole or something.

      My ghod! Listen to yourself, man! You're trying to make television suck harder than it does now!!

  • Is it a unique product users will find interesting, that Sling something? (writing comments so that part of story isn't showing up)

    • Re:What is it? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Mr. Bad Example ( 31092 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:32PM (#19245685) Homepage
      > Is it a unique product users will find interesting, that Sling something?

      Some people call it a kaiser box...I call it a sling box. I aim to watch TV with it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Is it a unique product users will find interesting, that Sling something? (writing comments so that part of story isn't showing up)

      It's a place-shifting box. Sure, all the Linux-heads can do 100x better with Linux, a capture card, and VLC, and some hacked lirc stuff, but for the rest of us who don't want to leave a PC on all day, it's effectively all that in a little box. Plus your cable TV coax to it (or your composite/svideo/component outputs), plug in the power supply, plug in the Ethernet, and in a few

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Delta-9 ( 19355 ) *
        I just got my slingbox from woot for $74.99 shipped. Even if I was only pay $12/hour to setup and configure a linux machine to do what the slingbox does, it would definetly take me more than 6 hours to get it working as well as the slingbox does. (Its working on my brother's Treo).

        I value my time at much more than $12/hr ... buying the slingbox and going the route of the slingbox is a much better solution than the DIY linux solution, even at $120 MSRP its a better deal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jacobw ( 975909 )
        One quick question. If you've got a slingbox hooked up to your Tivo at home, and you're watching from the road, is it possible for somebody back home to watch something else simultaneously on the TiVo? EG, if I'm watching a TiVo'd episode of The SImpsons on the road via Slingbox, can somebody simultaneously sit in my living room and watch a TiVo'd Survivor?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Delta-9 ( 19355 ) *
          The slingbox acts like a remote TV attached to your DVR.

          A simple way to answer your question is for me to ask you another question:

          Can you Tivo output to two different TVs at one time?

          If you answer yes to this, then you could, in theory, setup the slingbox to be one of those TVs and then you could have two TVs showing two different programs at once. I have a feeling that is not the case. Which would mean that if someone was home the same program would be showing on box 'TVs' at the same time.

          I have a sing

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Delta-9 ( 19355 ) *
            Ugh... sorry, for not proof reading...

            Can your Tivo output to two different TVs at one time?

            and

            Which would mean that if someone was home the same program would be showing on both 'TVs' at the same time.
  • Slingbox for Mac went 1.0 a few weeks ago I think. I'm not sure why it's just making Slashdot now.

    That being said, Slingbox Mac is working very well for me, paralleling the performance of the PC version (I have the Slingbox Pro with HD adapter). The only thing I haven't seen the Mac version do is a "half screen size" mode which the PC version does. Otherwise the feature set seems identical.

  • Has anyone done a "free" version of this, running something like a MythTV or other Linux-based media computer, say, and having it encode a cable signal on the fly to your laptop somewhere?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kwark ( 512736 )
      A simple mencoder script or VLC will do the job.

      But I just don't get this product. If you have a fast enough connection to download this kind of stuff, why would you waste your time watching TV? Just download (or stream if you are low on diskspace) something from your video repository you actually can choose to watch. IMHO the only reason to watch live tv would be news programs, and those can already be streamed (atleast from the public access channels)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by roscivs ( 923777 )

        IMHO the only reason to watch live tv would be news programs, and those can already be streamed (atleast from the public access channels)
        And sports ... which coincidentally are the most difficult to find streaming video feeds for.
    • Yes, you can do it with MythTV and MythWeb; the MythTV box records your TV, Tivo-style, and transcodes it to MPEG-4, which you can then stream to a viewer anywhere you have a sufficiently fast connection.

      Setting up MythTV is a bit of a bear, though. (Okay, that's putting it lightly ... it's probably best summed up as a sort of Old-Testament-style religious experience, and that's on a good day.) Pre-rolled distros like Knoppmyth or Mythdora make it a little easier, but it's still a weekend activity and is ha
      • Just as a followup, I apparently quite underestimated the cost of a Slingbox -- for some reason I had this idea they were about $75 or so, when they're really about $125. That would buy you at least one, probably two, PVR-150s if you shopped around for them on sale. If you could write off the cost of the spare computer to run it on (i.e., you have a few sitting around, as I suspect many /.ers do) then you could probably beat the Slingbox in price, although unless you have a spare ultra-low-power system, eve
        • I own a Slingbox but I am probably going to be building a MythTv box based on Ubuntu within the next month.

          The Slingbox does what it is advertised to do, but I have had recurrent problems interfacing it with the Moxi DVR that my cable company supplied. When I first got the Slingbox it wasn't even compatible with the Moxi DVR. Then a few months later they released IR codes that allowed me to control it. Unfortunately that control is intermittent as sometimes (mostly when I am 600 miles away) the Slingbox ref

  • This "news" is only about 4 weeks old... (Score:4, Informative)

    by CptTripps ( 196901 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @05:56PM (#19245939) Homepage
    ...but it's still awesome.

    I've been using mine for a while now, and can tell you that this is about the coolest invention I've seen in a while. Originally, I wasn't sure why I'd need one...now I can't travel without it. I sit in airports watching TV on my MacBook, and always get 1-2 people that ask about it.

    Great stuff...
  • More importantly is that this tool [business2.com] comes all over Mac fans.

  • iphone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rethcir ( 680121 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @06:02PM (#19246001)
    Hopefully this is a prelude to compatibility with a certain phone running MacOS..
  • I used to sell these things when I used to work for a retailer, they sucked. Our display was buggy and what not. Concept was cool though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Wovel ( 964431 )
      Than someone wherever you worked was just not very bright. I have had a classic since release and it has worked flawlessly. I have 2 Avs and the classic is still working great.

      There are no other products free or pay that compare with the slings ability to dynamically adjust to changing bandwidth. I have tried everything out there. I travel internationally 40-50 weeks a year and have tried every solution available including myth, orb , beyond and 2 or 3 others. Nothing has the hardware and remote suppor
  • While not widely known, http://sightspeed.com/ [sightspeed.com] has a free service called SightSpeed TV that let's someone with a TV tuner card in their PC stream the program to anyone in the world using SightSpeed's video calling service. SightSpeed works with Macs, but I'm not sure if the SightSpeed TV service works with Macs that have tuner cards, though a Mac can definitely recieve a SightSpeed TV stream.
  • I have tried everything I can, but I can't figure out how to hook up my laptop to hotel tvs that have those stupid OnCommand or Lodgenet devices attached to them. I have s-video to s-video as well as s-video to rca cables. I also have a universal remote because the hotel remotes don't have an input button. Problem happens when i hit the input button....nothing happens. The source does not change! There is also no input/source button on the tv :( What the heck can I do. The onCommand device is securely
  • I've been using Slingbox HD (whatever the red one is) since the beginning of December on a Mac. I started using the Mac beta which was updated at least once prior to the official 1.0 client. Setting it up was pretty easy and when I called tech support one evening I got one of the developers. Super helpful. In fact, before I bought one, the guy had me download the Mac beta and then gave me his Slingbox info to see how it worked on my machine. I bought one that evening after work. True story. I couldn'
  • From the sling community webpage, page 4:

    You are now required to activate your copy of SlingPlayer.

    I was at first impressed by Slingbox, right until I read this line. It is already too many software activation to deal with on the Windows platform, and I would avoid that like a plague on my Mac.

    I am always under the impression that Microsoft will deny my windows activation request on an unused license (or reactivate my computer in case the Redmond's fragile software is broken / infected with virus) after the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by argent ( 18001 )
      I am always under the impression that Microsoft will deny my windows activation request on an unused license (or reactivate my computer in case the Redmond's fragile software is broken / infected with virus) after they pulled the support for Windows XP

      Which is why I'm using Windows 2000 still.

      It doesn't need activation.

      So now they're trying to force it through the backdoor by requiring WGA for updates.

      I'm beginning to see how making the OS fragile is a marketing tactic.
    • That line refers to connecting your software to your SlingBox...not activating the SlingPlayer software.

  • Forget Slingbox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pecosdave ( 536896 ) on Thursday May 24, 2007 @03:01AM (#19249719) Homepage Journal
    I've been using MPEG4IP [sourceforge.net] since before a Slingbox was trendy, not sure buy maybe before it was released. It's not exactly meant to be used the way I used it, but I can stream audio and video from my TV card and I can change channels when I want as well.
  • If only they could integrate this with Apple TV, then users could stream live TV to their TVs.

    Alternately, one's iTunes library could be made available for streaming to one's computer. (That was supposed to sound funny, but it's a real proposition for the "home server" group.)

  • My wife's been wanting a TV in our bedroom for a long time. Unfortunately, we don't have room for a CRT and don't have the money for an LCD flat panel. (26" for $400?!? Only if it also makes breakfast, thankyouverymuch.) However, we both have laptops, her an iBook and me a Powerbook. We watch DVDs and downloaded videos on them in bed.

    So when I heard that SlingPlayer was coming to the Mac, I suggested it. I got a sweet deal on a Slinbox A/V from Buy.com ($125, $30 or so under list) and as soon as we get our

    • I'm all for catchy slogans but this makes no sense:
      "Save the world?" if there's no god, save the world from what? Save the world *to* what?

      If there's no god, what possible objective standard of right/wrong could exist?
      • If there's no god, what possible objective standard of right/wrong could exist?

        Is there a God who doesn't have a internally-contradictory set of moral frameworks?

        Check out The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer for a start. Also check into the recent studies of morality in chimps and bonobos (in the news recently).
        • I mean no disrespect when I ask this question: Your appeal for a god with no contradiction implies that there is a standard by which god is judged. Don't you see that this very question is self-referential?

          I worship and serve the God who created the universe. I am convinced that when people suggest that He is internally inconsistent that they are taking a simplistic view of God for the purposes of dismissing His relevance. What assumptions do you make when you judge god's moral framework?

          WRT science, the

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